Current and forthcoming motor vehicle electronic control units have heightened power density and increasingly compact casing dimensions due to the limited space available in the motor vehicles.
Certain electronic components are components that produce heat. These can be microcontrollers, the data processing speed of which is such that the microcontroller heats up during its operations, or can even be, for example, electronic components distributing high electric currents to the equipment of the vehicle or even simply conductive tracks carrying high currents through the printed circuit board.
In order to cool these components to prevent them from failing, it is known for their heat to be dissipated by directly thermally coupling these components to a thermally conductive casing of the device. In general, in order to ensure continuous thermal coupling, particularly when running the vehicle in which the device is mounted and subject to vibrations, the components are mounted on a printed circuit board arranged at the bottom of the casing, with projecting zones of the casing cover coming into abutment on the components so as to act as a radiator for cooling the components.
It has been established that such devices are bulky. Furthermore, the rigidity of such devices results in failures in the cooled components, particularly broken welds on the components or even damage to the component causing failure thereof.